I had evidently disturbed a most engrossing conversation, for mother looked flushed and a little excited, as she always did when anything happened out of the common, and Miss Ruth had the amused expression I knew so well.
"You are earlier than usual, my dear," said mother, with an odd little twitch of the lip, as though something pleased her. But here Dot, who never could keep a secret for five minutes, burst out in his shrill voice:
"Oh, Essie, what do you think? You will never believe it—you and I and Flurry are going to Roseberry for six whole weeks."
"You have forgotten me, you ungrateful child," returned Miss Ruth in a funny tone; "I am nobody, I suppose, so long as you get your dear Esther and Flurry."
Dot was instinctively a little gentleman. He felt he had made a mistake; so he hobbled up to Miss Ruth, and laid his hand on hers: "We couldn't do without you—could we, Essie?" he said in a coaxing voice. "Esther does not like ordering dinners; she often says so, and she looks ready to cry when Deb brings her the bills. It will be ever so much nicer to have Miss Ruth, won't it, Esther?" But I was too bewildered to answer him.
"Oh, mother, is it really true? Can you really spare us, and for six whole weeks? Oh, it is too delightful! But Carrie, does she not want the change more than I?"
I don't know why mother and Miss Ruth exchanged glances at this; but mother said rather sadly:
"Miss Lucas has been good enough to ask your sister, Esther; she thought you might perhaps take turns; but I am sorry to say Carrie will not hear of it. She says it will spoil your visit, and that she cannot be spared."
"Our parochial slave-driver is going out of town," put in Miss Ruth dryly. She could be a little sarcastic sometimes when Mrs. Smedley's name was implied. In her inmost heart she had no more love than I for the bustling lady.
"She is going to stay with her niece at Newport, and so her poor little subaltern, Carrie, cannot be absent from her post. One day I mean to give a piece of my mind to that good lady," finished Miss Ruth, with a malicious sparkle in her eyes.